John Bolton held seventeen months alongside Donald Trump in the White House before being ejected, like so many others, by his boss. 27th National Security Advisor to the United States, he now says worse than hanging from the American president. A danger to the United States and the world, he says. And an easy prey to Vladimir Putin. “It is not difficult to put an end to a war quickly when one capitulates. This is what Donald Trump does: he capitulates, on behalf of Ukraine,” said John Bolton. Interview.
L’Express: It is now clear that the Trump administration does not intend to invite Europe to the Table of negotiations on the war in Ukraine. Are you surprised?
John Bolton: No, because Donald Trump wants to negotiate directly with Putin, who also dreams of this tête-à-tête. This is the way Trump works. He prefers to deal with Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin only with friends or allies.
European leaders are indignant, but Trump is counterfeit?
Indignant will not change anything, Europe and Ukraine must take action. If there was a credible alternative for Ukraine in terms of military and economic assistance, which would resist the abandonment of the United States, Volodymyr Zelensky would not have to accept anything, because the Russians do not could not prevail on the battlefield.
“” “If you don’t stand up to Trump, he will continue to crush you.»
This is what has fished, in the management of Joe Biden and NATO of assistance in Ukraine in the past three years. This support was important but it was never provided very strategic, which explains – in part – the dead end on the battlefield. If Ukraine received adequate aid from Europe, it would not even have to negotiate with Russia. So everything could switch.
Many European leaders wonder how to go about it with Donald Trump. You who worked with him, what is your answer?
If you don’t stand head, he will continue to crush you. Trump says all the time if he has personal relations with a foreign leader, then the United States has good relations with this government. It’s excessively simplistic, of course. Personal relations have a role to play in international affairs, but what really matters are the interests of states.
Trump therefore thinks that Vladimir Putin and him are friends. It is not reciprocal, I guarantee it to you. Putin just thinks Trump is an easy target. And thanks to his training at the KGB, he will try to handle him, which he has already started to do. On the other hand, Trump does not like Emmanuel Macron, I don’t think he knows Olaf Scholz, but he didn’t get along with Angela Merkel, that’s for sure. He didn’t get along with Theresa May either. And Keir Starmer does not know him well. There are therefore very few Europeans in the position of power today with which Trump maintains personal relationships. This is a problem.
Trump seems to make all the concessions to Russia before even entering the negotiations….
It’s terrible, but predictable. Donald Trump and his vice-president JD Vance announced their program during the campaign. Vance made a speech where he said, in substance, that an acceptable outcome would be to declare a cease-fire along the existing front lines on the battlefield, to create a demilitarized zone, and to rule out Ukraine’s membership project at NATO. This agreement could have been written in Moscow. And that is, almost, what Washington offered last week. In this scenario, Ukraine is losing in negotiations even before they started. It is a capitulation.
“” “Trump makes fun of the conditions in which war ends for Ukraine. Faced with Putin, he capitulates in the name of kyiv. »
Trump had warned, but many people didn’t want to believe it. I remember in particular my republican friends, who supported Trump that Trump wanted to win a diplomatic victory, that he would not want to go to bed in front of Putin because he would seem like a loser and that he hated that …
In reality, what Trump wants more than anything is to end at all costs with this war. During the campaign, he said that neither the war in Ukraine nor the war in the Middle East would have started if he had been the president. He considers them as the Biden wars and does not want them to be a burden for his second term. If his priority is to end the war, this implies, unfortunately for Ukraine, that he makes fun of the conditions in which the war ends.
It is not difficult to put an end to a war quickly when one capitulates. This is what Donald Trump does: he capitulates, on behalf of Ukraine. However, he left a room for maneuver by offering a deal in Zelensky on the exploitation of rare Ukrainian minerals up to $ 500 billion. It’s a typical Trump attitude: everything is a transaction at the right price.
So all the people who thought Trump would stand up to Putin so as not to look like a loser were wrong?
Not all these people understand Trump. It is clear today that it has completely ignored European allies and Ukraine to start negotiations with Putin. Now, in his mind – not in the minds of a reasonable person, but in the mind of Trump, that makes him a strong man. Precisely because he royally ignores all these people.
How does he see Putin? You have seen them together often, right?
I met Vladimir Putin for the first time in October 2001, when I went to Moscow with Donald Rumsfeld just after September 11, because we had problems with the Russians. Since then, I have seen it multiple times. So I have observed the Russian president for more than twenty years. I can say that it is the coldest individual and devoid of feelings that I have never met. He knows what are the national interests of Russia, and that is what he pursues.
He did not hesitate to launch a seduction operation towards Trump. In an interview on Russian state television on January 24, four days after Trump’s inauguration, the Russian president echoed the words of his counterpart according to which the war in Ukraine could have been avoided if it had been At the White House in 2022. He continued on this path by releasing the American hostage Mark Fogel last week [NDLR : cet enseignant américain a été condamné en juin 2022 par un tribunal de Moscou à quatorze ans de prison pour avoir importé du cannabis, selon lui à usage médical]. All this is part of the efforts made by Putin to say to the world: “I respect Trump more than I never respected Biden”. Trump delights in it, while Putin simply tries to handle it using flattery and an exchange currency – the release of hostages.
What does Trump’s first mandate teaches us about the agreements concluded with Xi Jinping or Kim Jong-un?
People find it difficult to believe, as I had trouble believing it when I worked for Trump, but Trump has no philosophy, no great national security strategy, he does not make politics in the sense that we normally hear This word. Everything is transactional. And everything is seen in the prism of what will benefit Donald Trump personally. For example, he said in 2018 that Kim Jong-un and fell in love with him! Maybe Trump fell in love, but not his counterpart. The same goes for Xi Jinping. Trump thinks these people love him and love them. And why does he like authoritarian leaders? Because they do not cling to “details” such as laws, courts or public opinion.
Is he joining the category of authoritarian leaders?
For the time being, a large part of what he has done is the art of performance, and many announcements are blocked in court. From Franklin Roosevelt, we are talking about the first hundred days of a presidential administration in the United States. Trump is advancing faster than in a hundred days, there is no doubt, but it is difficult to say to what extent his shattering announcements will materialize and if it will result in lasting changes. I expect new offensives on the front of customs tariffs, even if it puts the United States in overhang with almost all the economies of the world.
Is Donald Trump a danger to world safety, in your eyes?
Observers always try to know what Trump’s strategy is, but again, he has none. He follows a series of pulses. The consequence? A much more dangerous world. Last week, he said he wanted to open negotiations with Russia and China to reduce their weapons expenses and start denuclearization of the world. This would allow the United States, dixit Trump, to save hundreds of billions of dollars.
“” “Trump knows nothing about anything. In 2018, he asked his chief of staff, John Kelly, if Finland was still part of Russia!»
I lived at the time of the Soviet Union, then of Russia, and believe me, I am paid to know that the Russians never adhere to their weapons control agreements, in particular the missile treaty Anti -ballistical, the Treaty on Intermediate Nuclear Forces, the Start and New Start programs and the various agreements that preceded it … think that an armament control agreement with China and Russia would solve all our problems is therefore particularly ironic and naive.
But you have to realize the ignorance of Trump, like his vice-president JD Vance.
When John Kelly was his chief of staff (before my arrival), Trump asked him if Finland was still part of Russia! Another example, this time I was already working with him: we were in England after the NATO summit in Brussels in 2018, when he almost withdraw from the transatlantic organization. He met Prime Minister Theresa May, we were talking about the chemical attack on the Skripal [NDLR : Sergueï Skripal, un ancien agent double russe victime, avec sa fille, d’un empoisonnement au Novitchok à Salisbury, en mars 2018].
A member of the British team says it is a serious attack, a chemical weapon attack against nuclear power. Trump then turns to Theresa May and said to him: “Ah, do you have nuclear weapons?” This anecdote simply means that Trump knows nothing. He did not learn much during his first mandate because he thinks he does not need to know anything, and that his personal relationships with other leaders will make the difference, not his technical expertise …
How much look at the project that Trump is implementing on the inner scene, in particular the dismantling of the state apparatus piloted by Elon Musk and his “Doge” ?
I am a conservative republican, I believe that the federal government is obese today. Nevertheless, Donald Trump acts in a very authoritarian way. We will see what the judicial disputes give but also the reaction of the congress. Will he wake up, Republicans and Democrats gathered, to say: “We did not give our agreement for that”? I think Trump will cause damage, as he caused it during his first mandate, but the American Constitution is much stronger than him.
Within twenty-four hours after his inauguration, Donald Trump revoked the protection of the secret service from which you benefit from Iran threats in 2021. What is your reaction?
This shows how mean and vindictive it is. He also deprived of protection Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, Mark Esper, his former defense secretary, simply because we did not agree with him in one way or another. However, he knows that the Iranian threat is real, which is why this protection had been maintained so far. He knows this because he is at the top of the Iranian black list due to the operation he has ordered for the assassination of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, at the head of the Al-Quds force, the unit D ‘Elite of the Guardians of the Revolutionary. I deplore it, but I am not surprised, I feared, like many others, this Trump vendetta … We are there.
.